Enjoy heart
In those deep dark caverns that I call home, I have learned to still my beating heart when taking a life. I have learned to bottle up my pain and I have learned to stop the flow of those forbidden things known as tears. I have learned the art of assassination.
This is the path that I am destined to follow, because I was born to be the next leader of our prestigious clan. I will one day be the one to send the men out to take lives and send others yet to their graves. I am to be the perfect cold hearted princess that will rule by fear and fear alone, and yet there is something missing and because no one I ask can fill the gaping abyss I’ve come across in my heart, I snuck out.
Insecurities make people weak and I must crush this insecurity if I am ever to rule over my great clan.
I follow my master’s teachings of silence and shadows as I sneak through the hard packed dirt streets of a village I have stumbled upon, but with my mind unoccupied by clan related matters, I can feel the abyss in my heart opening wider. I can feel an unquenchable desire and desperation to seal the void and silence the pain within me. These feelings of pain and desperation should be so natural to me after 8 years of nonstop life or death training, and yet I find myself unable to find my enemy. With out being able to find my enemy I search in the dark for a weak point, but my enemy already knows all of my weak points and I am faltering.
Failure to destroy an enemy is punishable only by death in my clan and I refuse to give in and die.
I am so preoccupied with my thoughts that I can feel my concentration slipping a bit, but this problem only continues to grow the longer I think on it. “Excuse me?” a voice interrupts my thoughts. In a flash a knife is in my hand and I stand grounded against my opponent. My opponent’s hands shoot into the air and a look of surprise crosses his face. “I’m sorry!” he quickly blurts out.
There is a moment of silence as we stand and observe each other. There is something about my opponent that makes me lower my knife and I don’t know what it is, but as I lower my knife he breaks into laughter. “Why do you laugh?” I ask, not overly familiar with this action. I remember that there had been a man that had laughed at something a year or two ago, but he had been immediately executed. No one had explained what this expression had meant and though it had puzzled me, I had chosen to forget the experience for the time.
“Because I thought you were a guy, but you’re a really a girl!” the boy replies doubling over a bit in laughter. Tears start to form in the corners of his bright green eyes as his dirty blonde hair playfully dances in a soft wind that gently blows by.
“I don’t understand.”
The boy gets his laughter partially under control and wipes a tear from his eye. “You’re a girl and I’m a guy. That means that I would beat you in any kind of fight,” he says with a giant grin.
I can’t help but laugh at his confidence. “You think that just because I’m a girl I would loose to you in a fight?” I ask sheathing my knife and walking towards the middle of the dirt path way. I bend my knees a bit and raise my hands prepared to fight.
The boy shrugs. “Just don’t go crying home to daddy when I win,” he jokes walking over to the middle of the pathway across the way from me. A dangerous, but playful fire dances in his eyes as he grins and beckons for me to just try and come closer.
With a grin of my own I accept his challenge. We exchange a couple of hits and blocks spending those first couple of seconds to learn our opponent’s style. Winning any fight is impossible without knowing your opponent’s strength and most importantly their weaknesses.
I watch his eyes as we fight waiting for him to show his weakness, but instead I see a constant fire in his eyes. His fire is nothing like what I have seen before. I have fought many opponents growing up, but when I saw a fire it would be something of the devil. Those fires had been cold and hard like a spirit’s vengeful flame. It was something that you could only find in a place that many called hell, but this boy’s fire is different. I can’t really explain it, but there is a passion and almost a hope in his fire.
It is something that I can feel inspiring me to try a little harder and though I don’t want to, I know I have to extinguish that fire because failure is not an option. With a kick I reveal one of his openings and send him flying with a finishing blow. My opponent flies a couple of feet before landing on his back and skidding a ways in the dirt.
I know he isn’t dead, because I hadn’t been able to bring myself to kill him. That fire in his eyes had stopped me and I knew that failing to kill him meant that my life was forfeit, but I still can’t kill him. My thoughts are again interrupted by his laughter.
I look over surprised at the boy that has made his way up into a sitting position. “Man I got my butt kicked big time!”
“Yes you did.” I watch amused as he rises to his feet again.
“Mind sparring with me again?” the boy asks getting into a fighting stance again.
I am utterly confused and at a complete lose for words. I had obviously won and without further training he didn’t stand a chance of beating me, but I could see the fire alight in his emerald eyes and settled into my fighting stance too. I will accept his foolish challenge and show him the error of his ways. This time he offers the first attack, rushing to minimize the distance between us.
This time with in seconds I reveal another weakness and send him flying, but once again the boy laughs and makes his way up into a standing position. “I take back what I said about you being a girl and all,” the boy grins as he dusts off his pants. “I’m Damian by the way,” he extends a hand to me.
“Analee,” I hesitantly reply shaking his hand.
“Analee,” he whispers my name with care, repeating the name so that he will remember it. “What a pretty name.”
That’s when I notice that the abyss in my heart is gone. That destructive force that I had tried so hard to silence was gone. It has been replaced by something that I have no real words to describe. It feels so . . . warm. That’s the only word I can think of that even comes close to describing this feeling.
In an instant we are surrounded by nearly a dozen men. Almost as if by instinct Damien and I are back to back ready to fight. As I stand prepared for battle I find that I recognize the men that stand before me. I can feel Damian’s tension ease and figure that he recognizes his opponents too.
I watch as the leader of my search group and the leader of Damian’s search group exchange looks across the way. With a silent agreement our groups part ways without a fight or another word.
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Analee looked at her now older and more mature reflection in a mirror as she tied her hair up in a bun. The warmth that she had felt years ago had been something that she would never forget, but it was also something that she could never recreate. It was a feeling she feared she was not destined to ever feel anew, but it was something of a hope that she still held on to.
Analee slid her favorite long curved knives into their sheaves and picked up the warrior mask up off of her bed. If there were people out there that could have such a bright and passionate flame in their eyes and have the will to continue when all hope was lost, then maybe there was a reason to fight. Maybe, she thought. Maybe I too can one day have a fire like that alight in my heart.